After years enduring hateful messages online while making “Girls,” Lena Dunham was not as surprised as others by the rise of MAGA.
While talking on this week’s “Girls Rewatch” podcast, Dunham explained that based on a number of comments she was sent on social media back in the early 2010s she was prepped and ready for the more hateful aspects of the MAGA movement. What did surprise her was how many other people were shocked by it.
“There were so many people who when the voices of like the really alt-right or MAGA or conservative voices, Proud Boys, whatever started to rise and people were like I’m so shocked by the way people are talking,” Dunham said. “I was like I’m not. Those voices existed in the comment section. I was experiencing those voices in 2012.”
She continued: “There were so many angry seemingly men and some women dissecting the show in these like incredibly conservative terms. Like yes, there were people in Brooklyn who found us irritating … I always had a lot more respect for that. But there was also a big contingent of conservative people looking at it almost like evidence of a certain kind of moral decrepitude and also making big judgements about our physical bodies, our sexuality. It was really interesting to realize kind of what a surprise that was to some people.”
Dunham has a new show out now on Netflix called “Too Much.” She might not star as the lead this time around – that honor falls to “Hacks” breakout Megan Stalter – but the story is yet another personal one for her.
“All my work is personal,” Dunham told TheWrap of infusing aspects of her life into the Netflix series. “I think I would be more scared tackling work that wasn’t personal to me.”
Watch the full clip of Dunham on the “Girls Rewatch” podcast in the video above.
